Air India,
Mumbai entered into an agreement with MSTC a Central PSU
under Ministry of Steel and its wholly owned subsidiary Ferro Scrap Nigam Ltd (FSNL)
recently to render services in the area of Disposal Yard Management. It is a
historic event in the Journey of MSTC and FSNL. These PSUs are rendering services
of scrap management, recovery, metal scrap auctioning for recycling throughout the
country. As informed by the company, FSNL will provide logistic and support
services for clot formation, classification and other support services while
MSTC – the parent company that specializes in e-auctions service will auction
the scrap to yield appropriate value for A-I in a fair and transparent manner.
This will enhance metal recycling within the country that consumes much less
energy and is environmentally friendlier than the iron ore process. This will
also reduce imports of shredded scrap which is at present hovering around 5-6
million tonnes per annum - indeed a step towards the e-Governance and Make in India
fulfilling the twin vowed objectives of our present Government.

The government expects at least 25 lakh vehicles, excluding
two-wheelers, to go off roads once it announces its scrapping policy for
vehicles older than 15 years.

Sources in the road transport ministry said initially, the policy
would be voluntary , with incentives to encourage people to replace their old
cars with new ones.

“About 50% reduction in excise tax for those who buy new vehicles
after selling old ones will be a big motivating factor. There will be a sudden
increase in demand for vehicles and the initial revenue loss can be compensated
in a few years,“ an official said.

A policy proposal is likely to be sent to the finance ministry in
a fortnight. TOI had on August 14 first reported that the ministry was looking
at providing relief of Rs 1.50 lakh for giving up old vehicles and buying new
ones.

According to government data, at least one crore vehicles
registered between 1990 and 2000 would qualify for the scrapping but the actual
number phased out would depend on people's participation. The government
estimates that a minimum 25% of such vehicle owners would prefer to replace
their old vehicles.

Transport minister NitinGadkari has announced the rollout
of the policy soon to reduce vehicular pollution.

Last week, automobile manufacturers had asked the government to
bring the policy quickly as Gadkari stuck to the April 2020 deadline for
rolling out BS-VI emission norms for vehicles. The government believes the
scrapping policy will push up annual demand for vehicles, which is pegged
around 35 lakh, and that would be enough enticement for the industry to step up
production of cleaner vehicles.

The transport ministry and the automobile industry are on the same
page on the issue of formulating a scrapping policy based on the “age“ of
vehicle and this is being seen as a “tradeoff “ by auto makers. “This certainly
is a highly arbitrary and irrational move to appease the auto industry in the
garb of containing air pollution. This unilateral action is against the interest
of truck operators and livelihood of lakhs in interiors of the country, who
are away from big cities. If old vehicles are unfit to operate, then the same
could be the case with newer but poorly maintained vehicles,“ said S P Singh of
IFTRT, a think tank on transport issues.